Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“I knew nothing about this,” Landon warns before I can say a word.
“What?”
I step onto the balcony where several stories below people are starting to gather for the tournament. The press is setting up. Staff running around, corralling spectators. It’s a sunny day. Not too hot and a slight breeze. Good weather for golf. Well, for people who are good at golf.
“When I got to the office, there was a voicemail from that producer,” Landon explains.
Christ. These people are incessant.
“The answer’s still no.”
“Right. I was very clear on that with them.” There’s a long and disconcerting pause. “Except apparently they’re under the impression Phil agreed for both of you.”
I damn near chuck my phone off the balcony. I rear back and barely stop myself from releasing, only finding the self-control when I realize there’s a good chance it’d knock someone below out cold.
“Fuck no, Landon. You get me?” My grip tightens around the phone, and I feel the plastic case start to crunch. “Tell them to piss off. He doesn’t speak for me. Ever.”
“Absolutely. I hear you.”
“They couldn’t get me on that set beside him with a gun to my head.”
“I get that, Garrett. I do.” Another unnerving pause. “I’ll make the call. Whatever you want.” He clears his throat. “Here’s the thing, though: As far as they understand, you’ve committed to this. If I go back and tell them you’re out, it doesn’t look good.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“No, I know. These are special circumstances. Only, they don’t know that. So they might start wondering if there’s something more to it.”
“Maybe they won’t,” I mutter through gritted teeth. I’m rubbing my molars down to nubs.
“I promise, it will raise questions. The kind that have a way of snowballing. Are you prepared for what happens when people start wondering if there’s bad blood there? Why you’d refuse to do an interview with your father? Because I’ll tell you what that looks like. They start calling your teammates and coaches and old college friends and some kid from your third-grade class to ask about your family and relationship with your dad. Can you be sure what they’ll say?”
I draw a shallow, ragged breath.
Screw. This.
For the sake of my career, I’ve been obliged to put on a front for years. There was no getting around it—Phil Graham is one of the biggest names in American hockey. It was either air all our trauma for the world to see or fake the happy family. I’d chosen the latter, because the former is too…Christ, it’s too humiliating.
The idea of the entire world viewing me as some sort of victim makes me want to throw up. Hannah has brought it up before, asking if maybe it’s time to let my father’s actions come to light, to let everyone know what kind of man they’ve been deifying. But at what cost? Suddenly I go from being “hockey player” to “the hockey player whose daddy used to beat him up.” I want to be judged for my skills on the ice, not dissected and pitied. I don’t want strangers knowing my business. I feel sick just thinking about it.
These past few years, I’d been fine playing along, putting on that front. Now, for some inexplicable reason, my dad seems intent on making my life especially difficult.
The last thing I want, however, is some nosy sports reporter snooping around in my life. If they track down Coach Jensen at Briar University, I have no doubt my old coach would have my back. Chad Jensen is tight-lipped on a good day. If someone showed up in his arena asking for gossip about a former player, he’d rip them a new one. But I can’t say the same for everyone in my life. I played with a lot of guys at Briar who knew I had a violent history with my father.
So despite the acid rising in the back of my throat, I have no choice but to do exactly what that asshole expected when he concocted this farce.
“Fine,” I tell Landon. Hating every word as it comes off my tongue. “I’ll do it.”
After we get off the phone, I pull up my father’s name on my contacts list. I can’t remember the last time I actually called him. But if he’s roping me into this, I’m not going quietly.
“Garrett. Good to hear from you. Ready to hit some balls?” he says, so goddamn unbothered, it spikes my already-heightened anger. He isn’t even involved in the tournament, but he makes it his business to always know what I’m up to.
“What the hell are you playing at?” My voice is low. The rage barely restrained.
“I’m sorry?”
He seriously has the nerve to play dumb? “This interview nonsense. Why?”
“They came to me,” he replies with feigned innocence. “Didn’t see a good reason to say no.”